Development of an Intelligent POWER Rehabilitation Cluster Machine and Its Clinical Testing and Assessment

Taipei Veterans General Hospital

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Frailty Syndrome; Intelligent POWER Rehabilitation Cluster Machine

Treatments: Other: general physical therapy; Device: Intelligent POWER Rehabilitation Cluster Machine

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02685839

2015-06-003B

Details and patient eligibility

About

Elderly care has become one of the most important subjects in Taiwan and "frailty syndrome" are the most common problems among the elderly. In view of this trend, Taipei Veteran Memorial Hospital imported POWER rehabilitation from Japan in 2008. While showing significant clinical benefits, investigators have found that the system still has certain limitations (e.g. high cost, requires large space, patients must commute to the center, lacks real-time objective feedback , boring routines makes staying power to motivate patients for long term rehabilitation programs.)

To overcome the above limitations, this project proposes an evidence-based rehabilitation model that accounts for actual clinical need and collaborates with our engineering team to develop a "cluster" , "wearable" and "Brain-Computer Interface System" version of POWER rehabilitation system. Combining cloud technology, investigators now introduce internet-of-things into the POWER rehabilitation procedure. The result will lower the burden of clinical support personnel, and provide an opportunity to quantify "frailty syndromes" so as to allow objective and quantitative scientific evaluation, leading to a more objective clinical diagnosis.

In addition, this project further proposes a virtual-reality (VR) system for POWER rehabilitation, as well as designs for the VR sceneries. Through the use of different animated 3D VR sceneries and interactive game design, investigators can make rehabilitation interesting and fun for the patients, motivating long-term compliance of the patients, thereby, improving the clinical outcome of POWER rehabilitation.

This project has the potential to create an innovative solution to address the current bottlenecks of our rehabilitation treatment model. Successful development of the system will offer rehabilitation clinicians more treatment options, lower the cost of supporting staff, reduce commuting cost for the patients, and elevate patient desire to comply with the treatment program. Finally, the system will not only enhance Taiwan's academic reputation in the international arena, it will also generate new commercial opportunities for Taiwan and contribute to Taiwan economic development.

Enrollment: 60 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 60 to 85 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• aged 60 to 85
• Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) frailty criteria
• willing to sign agreement

Exclusion criteria

• fracture w/o healing
• severe joint injury
• acute stroke or myocardial infarction (< 3 months)
• cardiac arrhythmia / unstable blood pressure
• disorientation or intellectual deterioration
• muscle contracture deformity
• pregnancy

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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60 participants in 2 patient groups

Traditional rehabilitation

Active Comparator group

Description:

Each subject will do traditional rehabilitation work two times per week and one hour at a time , lasting 24 weeks.

Treatment:

Other: general physical therapy

Power rehabilitation

Experimental group

Description:

Each subject will do Power rehabilitation work with motion tracking and biofeedback recording two times per week and one hour at a time, lasting 24 weeks.

Treatment:

Device: Intelligent POWER Rehabilitation Cluster Machine